This one is going to be long since it is more than just a character death but a full 'au revoir' to playing CF for 25+ years.

So why'd I make Miraja?

Well when I was talked into coming back to CF, one of the selling points was I had never been to the Shadow Plane and there was a new character challenge going on - so I made Theorendus and had lots of fun despite my story partner disappearing. I was eventually kicked from the Fortress and made neutral for Plane searching for centaurs so then I made Haelior, my first necro in 20+ years, for the 2nd character challenge. Haelior kind of got the shit end of the stick in many ways and the challenge really wasn't that great for me round #2 (sorry Rahs) but I did have fun with one aspect of Haelior = having minions to roleplay with.

See, I've always had good luck with roleplaying with other things over the decades:
-Mubs, a cloud villager who talked with and through his pet squirrel
-Abelmon, AP whose sister's soul was trapped in a child's doll
-Haelior, his undead he used as furniture or as "fans"
-Corzu, through his spirit animals
-and especially, Danjuh and Lona, the two-headed fire giant

And I still hadn't cracked the Plane. I firmly believe it's just not finished but who fucking knows, I've spent several hundred hours there and taken at least 25+ people there and I'm tired of slamming my head into a wall. Long gone are the days when Sacer would take people in character to give hints or answer emails about bugs/problems in the zone. I think I've accomplished more than any there but my only last thought was to get contact the planes... didn't really help overall but it gave me the inspiration for a better character than Haelior to end with: a talking evil familiar who took over an azure (which are forbidden to be conjurers).

I originally emailed the immortals asking for a conjurer who started with one of the talking familiars (usually not wanted) and to get an azure betrayer/align changed because I didn't want to massacre people over and over sub-17 but no love. So I made Aniela, then I made Aniela, then Laile, then Leidina, then Dinalei, Azvameth and then finally Miraja and got my first talking familiar. To all the people I killed at the low ranks, sorry, but the fact you still have to murder a lot of people in a small playerbase for Murderous Reputation sucks. I thought I did a good job with Miraja and glad this will be my last. I rp'd my heart out, got made an early Scion for impressing Tristhana and winning her "contest", and tried to play a nice evil entertaining guy. Got another RC win (the quest imp), got tattooed out of the blue (thanks Skreenak = your no-interaction style is foreign to me, I almost switched Imms when you gave me that tattoo) so things went well... but I already hit old age, was probably never getting leader and was getting incredibly bored.

Looking over the conjurers of old, most people always focused on devils at hero. I wanted a character that focused on maximizing demons to see how crazy they are.... and wow they are brutal when capped. Add a familiar that can very easily get a/b/s and nothing really stops the demon train. I'd raid and take items from 3-4+ defenders, I'd obliterate unprepared heroes in 1-2 rounds regularly, but I was pretty ballsy and dove at people against the odds all the time because if I didn't no one would ever fight. Probably just shy of 100 pks and I had 13 con at 300 hours after training it a lot (those 1-2 round demons can also kill you easily). I'll post some logs, like the arena competition I won, so you can see what it was like and it was fun but man are people toxic these days. 90% of the time I just took gold and nothing else and people would bitch, rant, taunt, logoff immediately, threaten to full sac you, say "they'd fuck your woman slave" and more. It was pretty disgusting and it just killed a lot of the game for me. One special salty thing was "gear lockers" would horde conjurer items and never login or logout the moment I connected...would have been nice to see those but I could literally never have gotten them in the 4 months. Oh well.

Few specific goodbyes:
1) Outlanders, it is really boring the style of play you drag the MUD through. When I login I would see 9 of 18 with detect invis/hidden, so I locate you all and yet you still stay hiding for 30+ hours before I talk to Alendross not realizing I can locate all of you. When I did try and retrieve against 4-5 of you together at the Tree, knowing I'm walking into cutoff, insects, bash (with no protective shield), the Hunt and more, all of this being basically a guaranteed death, you'd all loot and shit talk. All across the board, lame. At least imperials, fortress and even villagers actually fought.
2) On the reverse, in 300 hours I was raided exactly twice even when 5-7+ enemies were online. The whole mud in general just needs to grow some balls and fight more = so many people wouldn't even defend and instead would start hitting the outer nightwalker when it was 1v3. My favorite log I'll post soon, I retrieved against the village with 3 outlanders hiding at the giant, 2 villagers trying to run back to get me and I made it out with sub 100hp because no one worked together and the moment the giant died, everyone teleported/left at near full health when I was exactly a single hit from death = really pathetic.
3) I'm gonna miss hanging out with the Mephit, Narzas, Viz, Cali, Kira, and Zod. It was fun running around together although it rarely happened.
4) Morius, avoiding me for 2+ months of praying, leaving gifts and sending notes, I could only assume it was personal. There hasn't been a Chancellor in ages and I thought I was doing good but I can guess why it was silence.

I made Miraja to be my last character though for a few reasons:
-I only really came back during the pandemic because I had more free time (wasn't flying around for my job) and I've got a new job starting which means I won't have time for CF. My kids are also becoming teenagers and I'd rather play games with them (no way I'm teaching them this drug).
-This game is inherently negative and it wears on you over time. Over this long span of time I've had 10+ close friends play, had 6 become Imms and get chewed up and spit out by those in control, seen close friendships get ruined over drama, seen lots of people quit lately all because the negativity of this game is just endless. It doesn't help there's a cancer of assholes (yeah I mean you Jalim) that ruin the game when it is a small userbase. Hearing "TLB" jokes for 25+ years gets old, I'll probably always be bitter over what was done to my friends or special characters like Loshnak... just eats away at you.
-The nail in the coffin was the convo with Ishuli on discord. Talking bad about one of my friends, when you used to be a friend of ours and the three of us would talk every day about random books/anime/bullshit, just made me realize that the good things that come from CF are smothered by the bad. I was always searching for nostalgia and it rarely wasn't tainted. I'm the last of our friends to play and well, its time to hang up the hat - quarter of a century gone, end of an era.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my little obituary. I thought Miraja was a good note to end on. I'll post logs soon. CF changed my life with all the good, the bad, the ugly. In the words of one of my favorite movies: "In case I don't see you... good afternoon, good evening and good night."

Cheers,
Sand, Torak, Aether, TLB and whatever else you want to call me is out.